


The Mary Adler Project

by hughdancy



Category: Gifted (2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Light Angst, More characters added later, Uncle-Niece Relationship, YIKES this is nerve-wracking YIKES
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2018-12-03 14:59:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11534616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hughdancy/pseuds/hughdancy
Summary: Seven years have passed and Mary is a well-adjusted and normal 14-year-old, perfectly content with ignoring the occasional nightmares of being left in a stranger's house because it was "best" for her. When she receives a school assignment that requires digging into something personal, she finally decides to confront everything she's been shoving down, putting it all on display in a documentary project.





	1. prologue: the assignment

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time publishing a fic EVER, even though I've been writing stuff like this for about 5 years (and I've been writing stories for most of my life). Sooooo this is an exciting and totally paralyzing experience! Hooray!
> 
> I started thinking about how older Mary would deal with the trauma of being taken away from Frank, her entire life being in the hands of a courtroom judge, etc etc. As a person who was in gifted classrooms from 1st-12th grade, I completely identified with Mary and was enchanted by how the film wrestled with its ethical issues.
> 
> Obviously, I don't own these characters. (Infinite thanks to Fox Searchlight and Marc Webb for MAJORLY improving the quality of my life. I owe you big-time.)

“The assignment is simple: you have six months to complete a personal project. By the end, you must have at least two of three components--a posterboard display, a written report, or a video. Topics are encouraged to be unique and personal to _you_.”

Ms. Reilly picks up a stack of papers on her desk and slowly crosses the room. “Your topic can be learning something, like an instrument, or it can just be _hey, I want to learn all that I can about Vikings._ Even if you’re thinking a bit broadly, we can work on fine-tuning later, so don’t worry about being too narrow quite yet.”

She drops a stack of sheets on the front desk of each row. “A lot of kids tend to go for exploring their ancestry and genealogy, which is interesting because it’s always completely different with each person. If you’re blanking on ideas at the moment, just run with that for now. Today is just about brainstorming, nothing is set in stone, you guys know the drill.” She glances at us, a mischievous smile creeping across her face. She's definitely taking pleasure in our bewildered expressions.

A stack of the assignment sheets whizzes past my eyes, landing on the corner of my desk. I take one and pass the rest back. As my head turns, I catch Jessie’s eye. She pulls a face, and I have to keep myself from snorting. This _is_ a pretty odd project, and we’ve lived through some odd things in all our years in gifted programs.

Ms. Reilly continues, “Ask me any questions you may have. I have some sample posters and reports you can look at. Just remember to keep your minds open, and think about what you want to dedicate your time to. It’s a lengthy project, so make sure it’s something you’re interested in.” She finally looks up at us, and her smile grows. She knows she’s got at least half of us stumped, and she’s excited. Ms. Reilly says challenging us is one of her main joys in life.

This is why her next words are no shock to me. As she turns to walk back to her desk, she adds, “Challenge yourself. Do something you’re afraid of.”

 _Afraid of, afraid of, afraid afraid afraid_ echoes in my ears, and then it’s silent. Like a puzzle piece falling suddenly and perfectly into its place, something has clicked in my brain. Once I realize what the something is, my heart immediately takes off from the starting line, racing towards a finish that I didn’t know could exist. That maybe _doesn’t_ exist, but… maybe I need to try to look for it. Forget the fear, the endless circles of worrying and wondering _what if_ and _am I who I’m supposed to be_ and _is it even possible to figure it all out, or am I heading straight for a dead end?_ It’s time to dive in. Head first, heart wide open, ready for anything and everything.

A tap on my shoulder startles me. I turn around. Jessie is looking at me, her face twisted in confusion.

“I have no idea what to do,” she whispers. “You?”

As I nod, I feel a mischievous Ms. Reilly smile spreading across my face.

“I’m going back in time.”


	2. starting is seriously the hard part. (right?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!!! imagine this: I tried something new and I am SEMI-KEEPING UP WITH IT. The fact that I'm posting a second chapter is something like a miracle. Thank you to EVERYONE who read the first chapter and those who gave kudos!!! It was SUCH incredible encouragement for me!!!

It’s Saturday afternoon. I have to film today. I _have_ to. I’ve been putting it off all week.

I stare at the lens for a few minutes before hitting RECORD. I immediately turn it off.

Back on. Off. On. Off. And then I shake out the nerves. Literally. I wiggle my fingers and flail my arms around until it makes me laugh, and then I know I’m ready.

I turn it back on, falling back onto the bed. I smile at the camera, laugh nervously, already imagining whether or not I’m going to cut this bit out.

“Okay, let’s go,” I say, still giggling a bit.

I imagine the clips I’ll overlay later. I mean, I’m not an iMovie genius or anything, but I know enough to throw in a bit of pleasant music, add transition screens in between the day/topic changes, and rip the audio from video clips if I want to make voiceovers. When I talked about my vision for the project with Mrs. Reilly, I said I want it to be a bit rough. It’ll be neat and chronological, to an extent, but I’m filming with my phone and with a dinky old camcorder I borrowed from the school. I want it to be shaky and grainy sometimes.

She agreed with me, which I was grateful for, since I hadn't explained it very eloquently. “Authenticity,” she said, her fingers steepled under her chin as she nodded seriously. “I want it to be all your doing, Mary. Your perspective, your filming ideas, your interview ideas. Let me know if you need help, but… I think you’ve got this covered.”

I think of her vote of confidence, feel the energy rising through me, and start talking.

“My name is Mary Adler.” Picture of me in a sunflower field from the time I made Frank screech to a stop and pull over on the side of the highway just so I could feel the fuzz on the stems. They’re all well over two feet above my head, and I’m wearing stripes and sandals and smiling wide. “I’m fourteen, and I’ve lived in St. Petersburg my entire life. Well, most of it. I was born in Boston, actually. And that sounds trivial, but it’s important. That’s where my story starts.”

Now a picture of me and Frank. It’s a little over a year old. Roberta took it on the Fourth of July, not this past summer but last year’s summer. We’re sitting on the edge of the porch, and he’s making a joke about writing rude things in the air with sparklers and I’m laughing.

“This is Frank. He’s my uncle, my mother’s sister. He brought me down to Florida when I was six months old, after my mother died. And we’ve been hanging out ever since," I say, smiling momentarily at my adopted phraseology. Then I realize what else I _need_ to say, and the smile evaporates.

The springs of the bed creak beneath me. “I feel like I have to say… my mother didn’t just _die_. Well--God, wait, that’s a really horrible and weird way to phrase that. No no no. I don't want it to be like this.” I run a hand through my hair and sigh. I catch myself staring at the wall across from me. The Fourth of July picture is nestled between one of Fred rubbing on my legs and one of Roberta making my birthday cake a couple years ago. My heart wrenches, and I can't say that I know quite why yet.

“I told myself I had to be as transparent as possible in this process, you know? Like, as long as I wasn’t sitting here revealing a bunch of business that isn’t my business, I need to be as open and honest about everything as I possibly can. That’s the point of this project. Confronting stuff. Dealing with crap I've been suppressing. Asking people stuff I've been afraid to ask, even if sometimes that means asking _myself_ hard questions. And because this whole thing is kind of _because_ of my mother, I need to be honest about that too. Especially honest."

Now that I’ve sufficiently convinced myself, I say it. “She committed suicide. Like I said, I was six months old. She left me in the living room of Frank’s house. In Boston. And he, he decided to keep me. And we moved here, and... here I am. Here we are. Still together.”

I stop. Something’s off.

“It’s not right to do this by myself.” I shake my head and stop the recording.

\------

A twenty-minute bike ride later, I’m wrapping the flexible legs of my camera's tripod around a set of shelves in Frank’s workshop. I’ve wound it around one of the corner posts on the third shelf, which gives the camera a nice--albeit slightly distant--view of his worktable.

“So you talked for two minutes and then realized you _didn’t_ want to talk?” Frank asks, his voice slightly strained as he scrubs a rusty gear (or something?) with a brush. "Not a great start to a six-month documentary project, bug.”

“Oh, hush.” I jump up onto the table, swinging my legs. I peek at the camera and hope the framing is okay. _Authenticity_ , I remind myself. Rough. Homemade.

“Can you pass me the cleaner?” he asks, wiggling the fingers of his outstretched hand without even looking up.

“Is it that smelly one?”

“You think everything smells. Even flowers.”

“They’re just so perfume-y. Ucch, is it _this_ one?”

He looks up, takes the bottle. “Yes, thank you. Now I promise I’ll let you ask the questions.”

“Not likely.” I tuck one foot under the opposite knee. “Okay, I was obviously just laying out the basics, and I felt weird talking about it without you with me. And I didn’t want to tell any of your side of the story.”

“My side?”

“Yeah. I mean, um, I mentioned Mom, and all, and then I started saying that you took--you kept me, and we moved here from Boston, but I didn’t go any further than that.”

“Well, that’s about it,” Frank says, wiping away the last bit of rust from the whatever-the-crap he’s holding.

“But… why?”

Frank looks up at me, for longer than a second this time. “Why what? Why’d we move here?”

I nod.

His eyes narrow a bit, but not in a mean way. When we’re talking about important things, he always pauses before he speaks, like his brain is trying to organize itself. He’s very sincere. Thoughtful. Never says or does anything he doesn't mean.

“I wanted to leave. I mean, _I_ , personally, wanted to go somewhere else, anyway,” he says slowly, glancing up at me again. “And I wanted to take care of you because I thought that’s what Diane wanted. And, I… I wanted to get away from Evelyn.” Now he avoids my eyes. He kneels down, rummaging in one of the boxes under the table.

I feel my face burn, my heart clenching and drawing itself in. In a shrunken version of my own voice, I say softly, “Seems like she didn’t want to be around me, either.”

He straightens up again, dropping some wrenches onto the table. “Well, it’s her loss, isn’t it?”

The tightness in my chest lets go just a bit, and my smile comes easily.

Frank grabs a rag and wipes his hands. “Okay, that's as clean as it's going to ever be. You up for Joe’s?”

“Am I up for the best milkshakes and crinkly fries in the tri-county area? Duh.” I slide off the table and head for the camera.

"Hey," Frank says suddenly.

I turn back, one finger poised above the RECORD button.

“I’m really proud of you for doing this, Mary.”

I exhale through my nose, a breath I didn't know I was holding. My heart fully relaxes. I'm not alone. Never.

I turn off the camera, we go to Joe’s Diner (less than five minutes away; I’d be lying if I said we don’t end up here about every other afternoon), we dip our fries in our milkshakes and have one of our usual tangential conversations, and then we go home. And it’s so normal and lovely and a thought starts creeping in my brain that I have a feeling will be sticking with me for a while.

_Am I doing this project to show people how exceptional Frank is? To convince them?_

Then, a moment later:

_Is it going to work?_


	3. cooking with childhood memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying out a bit of a new style this chapter, and it's probably awful but I'm trying to wrestle the way my brain is seeing this story playing out, and convey it through actual language. I'm keeping the narrative style so it doesn't read like a stiff audio transcript, but I'm trying to intercut brackets to indicate where Mary adds in footage from another time. So when I put [transition] with the location, it means there's some other footage cut in. This may not work and I may scrap it all later, so savor this special Limited Edition(TM) chapter while it lasts.
> 
> Again, endless thanks to anyone who's read or commented/kudos'd. It means absolutely the world to me as someone who's been writing for so long without sharing and forgotten what it's like to hear such kind things.

The next day after school I go over to Roberta’s for one of our cooking lessons, camera in tow. As soon as I step into the kitchen, already fiddling with the video settings, she throws down the dishtowel she’s holding (with as much force as one can really hurl a small rectangle of fabric).

“No,” she says firmly, pointing at the camera. “Baby, I told you I’d help you however I can--”

“And this would be _soooo_ helpful,” I insist.

“--but I will _not_ be on camera,” she finishes. She shakes her head. “Honestly. Who’d want to see me in a professional documentary? It’s not like I’ve got much to tell anyway.”

I laugh. “Roberta, it’s not a professional documentary. It’s me with a six-year-old camcorder I checked out from the school library. And I need you! You’re totally an integral part of the story. And I’m trying to film everything I can in case I want the footage later when I’m editing.”

She stares at me, her expression unflinching.

“Please? Please please _plea_ \--”

Roberta sighs extra-loudly. “Okay. Okay. We’ll give it a try, but I get full footage approval upon review. No, scratch that--I don’t want to watch any of it back. We’ll just see how I feel when it’s done, okay?”

“Okay,” I say seriously, trying to contain my immense excitement but unable to stop my head from nodding vigorously. “And we’ll cook and everything at the same time, so it’ll just be like any other day. And I can cut anything out. If you want me to cut something, just tell me and I’ll do it.”

“Alright, alright.” Roberta reaches for a pan from the lower cabinets. “Let’s get started, then. We’ve covered the basics, and now it’s time for the Italian unit. I figured we’d start with lasagna, seeing as that’s one of your favorites. Got your notebook?”

I position the camera on top of a stack of cookbooks and start recording. Then I open my notebook, theatrically uncapping my pen. “Yes ma’am.”

“Alright, this’s pretty easy. Mostly just noodles, sauce, cheese. But we’re going to kick it up a notch.”

“Lemme guess. We’re spiking the sauce with a secret ingredient.” I wiggle my fingers in the air, trying to imitate an evil genius but probably just looking like a dorky one.

Roberta grins. “Of course. Fresh herbs. Makes a world of difference.”

I start copying the ingredients into my notebook as she piles everything on the counter, listing them off. After a minute of learning how to tell when a tomato is ripe and the best technique for stripping thyme leaves off the stem, the sound of Roberta’s voice is dulling in my ears. All the words blend together, and I have trouble focusing on my pen making the words, and on hearing anything other than this one thought pulsing in my head. _Your questions are too big and you're never going to get the answers you want. If you're even brave enough to ask them._

The thought is so rude that it throws me off. I zone out for a second, overcome.

“And then you just stir the sauce, simmer for about five minutes. It doesn’t need to really cook, obviously, since we just added the tomatoes and herbs--Mary? Baby, are you listening to--?” 

Roberta tilts her head. The slight flash of movement in my peripheral snaps me out of… whatever that was. I blink rapidly, reorienting my vision.

“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head a bit. I point at the pot with my pen, fixing my stare on the steam curling upwards. “Um, so it’s thyme and rosemary?”

“Wait. Wait wait wait.” Roberta puts down her wooden spoon and reaches for the knob, turning the heat down. “Okay. You wanted to talk about stuff, let’s do it. I don’t do this dancing around the subject nonsense and you know that. Spit it out.”

“No, it’s--” I cut myself off with a sigh, and my eyes flick involuntarily over to the camera. “I guess I kind of have one question. But it’s kind of big.”

She echoes my sigh.

I say it all in one breath. “What did it feel like to watch all the court stuff happening and not being able to really say anything or do anything about it?”

The weariness in Roberta’s eyes turns to steel. She shifts her legs, glances at the food spread on the counter.

Silence fills the kitchen, broken only by the timid bubbling of the sauce and my sharp exhales through my nose. Roberta looks frozen, staring her hand holding the spoon.

I accept the stillness and wait. I’m in no hurry.

“I’ll do this for you,” she says slowly, “but we’ve gotta postpone the lesson ‘cause I need to do this cooking myself or else I won’t make it through.”

I cap my pen and close my notebook.

Roberta turns the stove back on. The spoon makes a rhythmic scraping sound on the bottom of the pot as it twirls in gentle circles. She’s already multitasking, filling a bigger pot with water and putting it on the other burner.

I move to sit on the counter beside the sink, so now I’m just out of frame. I pull up some questions on my phone that I was typing out late last night (in my hopes of roping Roberta into talking to me).

“Not to be all _I told you so_ about Frank, even so long later, but...” She peeks under the lid of the water pot, trying to dodge the smile creeping onto her face. “I knew something would happen once you went off to school. At home, you could be kept at bay, you know. But out there, oh boy.” She looks at me, smile full blast. “You were gonna shine, and there was nothin’ anyone could do to stop you.”

“So I got mouthy, Miss Stevenson found out I was gifted, and after I hit that kid on the school bus they were scared I was gonna be violent, and--”

 

[TRANSITION TO: Mary’s bedroom]

 

“Okay, story time.” I hold up a picture of me tugging Fred’s leash as he tries to head towards a pile of garbage bags. “This is seven-year-old me, for context. I figured I should tell this story in a _leetle_ more detail, so here you go.

“I was on the bus to school, and this one kid from my class had a really nice diorama project thing, and these older kids tripped him and it all spilled and broke. I yelled at them, things were said, words exchanged, yada yada, the technicalities are irrelevant. Then I may or may not have hit this one twelve-year-old with a textbook I grabbed out of someone’s hands.”

I hold up the picture again. “Remember. This is the kid who did that. A scrawny thing, weighing no more than a sack of flour, who spent her spare time making up cheers about her cat and trying to learn how to do that technique of drawing a five-point star without lifting your pen off the paper. And I couldn’t even figure that out.”

I shift, my gaze dropping from the lens for a moment. “It seems really funny now, in addition to being totally irrelevant. But the thing is, that’s why Frank had to come to school. And that’s when the principal told him I should go to the Oaks school. And he said he didn’t think so. And she was upset, she did some digging on me to find out what the deal was, and wa-la. Evelyn was summoned.” I try to smile, but my eyes are tired and it feels like my bones are filled with jelly.

“Moral of the story: you shouldn’t hit people, because then it’ll be your fault for getting sent away.”

 

[TRANSITION TO: Roberta’s kitchen]

 

“-- the principal called Evelyn,” I say tentatively.

She nods, moving the sauce pot off the stove and switching off the burner. “She wanted better opportunities for you.”

“Like Oaks.”

“Like Oaks,” Roberta repeats. There’s a beat of silence before the water starts bubbling like crazy, and she has to cram all the lasagna noodles in the pot, and then it boils over just enough to make a mess, and we’re laughing and all the thickness of the tension breaks.

I remember one of the other big questions I wrote on my phone (not like there are any small questions within this topic). “See, I think that’s the bit I never understood,” I tell Roberta, mesmerized by the quickness of her movements as she starts mixing the ingredients for the cheese layer. “Principal Davis is all _this girl needs more academic attention_ , which to a degree I get, but did it never cross her mind that maybe I needed a steady home environment too? Maybe that would have just as big of an impact? I mean, do you think they’re equally important?”

“Baby, if I knew the end-all be-all answer to that question, we wouldn’t be here right now. Truth is, there’s no magic formula. That was what was most frustrating to me.”

The cheeses are all mixed up, but Roberta keeps dragging the spoon around in lazy circles, as fixated as I am on the white paste. “You going to live with Evelyn wasn’t a guaranteed fix-all. You living with Frank wasn’t a guarantee, either. Nothing was sure. I wish I could explain it to you, baby, I wish so badly, but to this day I don’t know what in God’s name made them think sitting in a drafty room downtown for hours at a time trying to decide where to put you like you were some math-hungry minion was a reasonable way to deal with a seven-year-old girl’s life.”

It takes me several seconds to remember how to breathe, and it feels like my brain is fogging up. But then I feel this other side of me saying: _And you thought I'd never ask._

I lift my hand and turn off the camera.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's taken so long for me to update, but I've just started school up again and I've decided not to push a strict posting schedule onto myself. or any posting schedule, for that matter. my realistic goal would be to post every couple weeks. once a week would be better, but seeing as I'm always trailing several random story ideas at once, I doubt this one will be able to hold 100% of my attention, and I don't want to force it. but trust me, I love this story and I really want to see it through. slow but steady is my method!


	4. the explanation, extended edition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Eventually my titles will just be me crytyping about how much I love this movie and can't seem to properly honor it through my garbage work.)
> 
> I wanted to mention something that's probably becoming evident: in my story, Frank and Mary literally live in the same house in the same town, and Roberta's still there and Frank's still working on boats and they still have a cat (I know this hasn't actually come up yet, but it's not Fred, it's another cat; I'll at least recognize that Fred the garbage can cat probably wouldn't live that long) and I basically kept everything the same. I know that realistically, most of this would be different by now, but WHO! CARES! Writing a time jump is difficult, and I'm lazy and too in love with the atmosphere of the film to mess with it. Please join me in my land of deliberate ignorance of the sands of time.
> 
> Again a MASSIVE thanks to everyone for reading/commenting/kudosing. This has been an overwhelming experience for me. I haven't posted my writing on the internet for years, and I haven't posted more than one chapter of something since I was twelve. You all have been so kind.

Who needs a tripod when you’ve got a stack of history textbooks and an old upside-down Pirouettes tin (which you usually use to hold your markers but you dumped them out for the sake of your project and now they’re all over the floor but you’ll attend to that mess later)?

I balance my camera on top of the tin, pointing it towards my bed. My DIY tripod is on the end of my desk, which is a couple feet from the end of my bed. I turn on the string lights above the headboard of the bed to create a nice glow in the background. I’m trying to get a standard setup for the vlog-type segments I’m doing, since I want them to be a framing device for the main story. Like something happens, and I’ll talk about it, or comment on the interviews, or just walk through what I’m feeling. I also just want to film a crazy amount in case a bunch ends up on the cutting room floor later. I don’t want to find myself cramming in a bunch of nonsense the night before this project is due just to get it to be around one hour, like Ms. Reilly recommended.

Once the camera is set, I sit down on the edge of my bed with my photo boxes at my feet. I’ve got MARY 0-7, MARY 8-12, and a MARY 13-present. I already poked through the boxes earlier, and have a few tucked at the front of each one, ready for action.

The lighting in the room is dusky and soft, thanks to the rare overcast sky. The house is quiet--Frank’s grocery shopping, which I usually like to do with him, but had to miss out on today. I feel like before I can move on there’s something else I need to film, and I’m glad to have an opportunity to do it in an empty house.

I’m surprised to feel a buzz of excitement running through me as I settle in. I think it’s just the nerves simmering with the thrill of a new project. Whatever the feeling is, it gives me a jolt in my heart as I press RECORD.

“This is something like an introduction part two, extended edition. I was thinking I should explain a little bit more about my mom and how I ended up with Frank in the first place. I figured it would come out in the interviews and the stories, but I don’t think that’s going to work right. There needs to be a presentation of the facts. Just lay it all out there. Total clarity.”

I reach for a photo from the 0-7 box. It’s the earliest picture of me that we have. The earliest picture that will ever exist, I realize. I lean forward, holding it close to the lens for a few moments before sitting back again, still holding it up next to my face as I talk.

“I realize that any story starting with something like _I was born on a rainy Tuesday in Boston_ seems like a total snooze-fest, but I promise it’s got a point. So this is me when I was born. I’m about six hours old here. I really _was_ born on a rainy Tuesday in Boston, to one Diane Adler. My dad wasn’t there. I’ve never met him, and I don’t know where he is now, and to be honest, I don’t really care. That’s not what this story is about.

“My mother loved math. Like me. And like her mother. So my mom was working on one of the Millennium Problems, which are basically these huge equations. There’s seven of them, and only one has ever been proven. She studied the Navier-Stokes problem. She worked on it for years and years. It consumed most of her time. And then, one day, she solved it.”

My throat has started constricting, but I work around it. The words squeeze out, tears pushing at my eyes and making my face flush.

“And Frank found her with me on the floor and she was surrounded by all these papers and she just… She didn’t know what to do anymore. The only thing she’d ever done was finished. Gone. I mean, really, what do you do after you finish something that everyone said was impossible? Once you’ve worked yourself beyond what was even feasible, literally what can you do next?

“It’s awful. I guess she had these same questions. One day when I was six months old she came over to Frank’s house and when he was out she--”

A lump skyrockets up my throat. Tears are streaking down my face, skipping off my chin and landing in my lap. First it's just one, and then it's another and another. I just ignore them. This has to be dealt with. I have to look it in the eyes and say _yes, that’s what happened. And I can’t change it. And I can’t remember it. But that’s what happened, and it’s why I’m here._

“She committed suicide. She put me there on the couch. And Frank decided to take care of me, and we moved to Florida. And we were doing really good, until...”

The tears and the heaviness in my throat have joined forces, and I'm unfit for battle right now. I’m suddenly exhausted, like simply talking about my messy childhood for five seconds sucked all the energy out of me.

I just get up and leave the room, not even bothering to turn off the camera. It doesn’t matter--I don’t even know if I’ll use this footage.

Or if I can even continue at all.

\-----

The following week, we have a project check-in with Ms. Reilly. One by one, she calls us to her desk and we talk discuss our progress. I’m jiggling my leg and fiddling with the flash drive in my hand when I hear her call, “Mary?”

I make the trek to her desk in three huge steps and hold out the flash drive. I speak quickly, nerves flooding my voice. “I brought some rough cuts of the first few bits I’ve done. I haven’t polished everything up yet, you know, but, yeah.”

Ms. Reilly smiles and plugs the USB into her computer. “Excellent, Mary. I knew you’d hit the ground running with this.”

I sit in the chair by her desk. My incessant leg-bouncing continues as she watches the video, volume low and impossible for me to hear with the din of the classroom against the back of my head. The flash drive fiddling is replaced with tearing my cuticles and nails, a terrible habit that I’ve had since--cripes. Seven. Is _everything_ in my life going to have to connect with my childhood trauma now? It’s super annoying to have one mini-epiphany after another.

Anyway, Frank tried to break the habit. We did gloves, stress balls, and metal puzzlers to occupy my hands. Lemon juice, nail polish, vinegar to curb the biting. Nothing took. I even like the taste of lemon juice now. I guess I’m a bit too adaptable.

This thought train luckily occupies me for the duration of the clips. Frank’s workshop turns into Roberta’s kitchen, and then eventually my bedroom. My stomach swirls as the clip of my explanation plays. I ended up leaving the whole thing in. I didn’t want to have to lie to Ms. Reilly about it.

I feel a stab of embarrassment when the screen fades. Besides those two interview things, all I’ve got is a filmed documentation of a mini-mental breakdown. Perfect start.

Ms. Reilly closes the video window and turns to me. “This is great so far, Mary. Just what I was hoping to see.”

Wait. Um. “Really? I know it’s not a lot yet...”

“I only handed out the assignment last week, Mary! You’ve got plenty of time! This is a good sneak peek for now. Definitely keep up the mix of personal videos--vlogs--and interview bits. Including Frank throughout is also key, seeing as he’s obviously important to this story. You’re really on the right track, making great progress already. And it’s not even been two weeks yet. This is going to be a really impressive project.”

I shift my legs, tucking my hands under my knees. “Um, about the last clip--the vlog bit--I want to finish that later. I really do. It was just more difficult than I’d thought, and I couldn’t--”

“Mary.” She immediately sets down the pen she just picked up and focuses entirely on me. “Don’t worry about it. I want you to take this at your own pace, and don’t push yourself too hard to talk about things if you aren’t ready. I’m glad you stopped yourself when you felt like you needed to. Additionally, it’s completely up to you whether you want to include that clip, or start over with the story. It really depends on how you want to tell your story--your whole story--and that’s something only you can decide. I have full confidence in that, okay?”

My stomach settles a bit. She’s right--I’m the director of this thing, basically, if it were to have actual production credits. I have control. It’s _my_ story and I can decide how much crying I want in it. (Probably going to shoot for less crying scenes than non-crying scenes. Seems right.)

Ms. Reilly writes something on a yellow Post-it, stopping to tap her pen on the desk. She squints in the distance for a second and then looks at me again. “You know how sometimes documentary filmmakers are looking at a topic, and filming, and they have a vision of the story in their head, but then something else entirely different starts unfolding and the entire focus shifts?”

I blink. “Maybe? Like it just doesn’t turn out how they expected?”

Ms. Reilly nods, flicking her pen as she points at me, matching the rhythm of her nodding. “Sometimes another story rises up. Or not another story, but things just happen that weren’t anticipated. A new branch of the story grows.” She shrugs and scribbles on the Post-it again. “I’m just bringing it up because I have a feeling that may happen here. Just try to stay open to things as they happen. When things unravel, follow the threads you find. This is a rich topic, and an incredibly raw opportunity for self-reflection for you. I’m really looking forward to seeing the finished product. And everything along the way.”

“Thank you,” I say, composed but secretly itching to go move things along. Ideas are stirring around in my brain out of nowhere.

Ms. Reilly rips the Post-it off the pad and offers it to me, along with my flash drive. “Mary, I think it’s wonderfully ambitious of you to attack this, head-on. Really brave.” There’s a beat of silence--well, nearly. Someone across the room laughs and nearly chokes. Papers shuffle, voices are cross-hatched over each other. But between us there’s this quietness hovering, the air thick with the stuff she’s not saying. She doesn’t have to. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Yes, ma’am.” I walk back to my desk, where I drop the USB in my backpack and run my finger along the sticky end of the Post-it as I read it. It’s basically what she was saying about staying open-minded, and about thinking who I want to interview next. Maybe making those interviews a little more formal, but keeping things casual when Frank’s around because he’s obviously no one to make a fuss about. Okay, she phrased it more like _important to include as often as you feel is necessary, so the film should reflect your actual relationship_. But same difference.

Then at the bottom, in her swoopy half-cursive, there’s a little sentence that makes my stomach launch into a full-out gymnastics routine of flips and kicks.

_Consider discussing your grandmother more openly. Have you had any contact with her since?_


	5. nighttime epiphanies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW LONG IT'S BEEN. HOLY CRAP. The second half of last semester hit me like high tide and my Christmas break was pleasantly busy. I've felt a little stuck on this story, but I think I've kind of reoriented myself. I'm feeling happy and really pleased with how it's going so far. This chapter is a wee filler-y, but it's nice 'n fluffy so I hope y'all like it! I kind of had to take a step back before the plot really takes any twists or leaps. :)
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read/commented/kudos'd! It means absolutely everything and I can't possibly thank you enough for supporting me.
> 
> Lemme think, any new bits to explain in this chapter... well, Mowgli's the cat. I don't know why. I thought it sounded cool. I haven't sorted out the details yet, but I'm thinking they definitely found him stranded somewhere. Mary's that person who never chooses a pet, they sort of choose her.

“Frank.”

“Mmmfff.”

“Frank. Wake up.”

“MmmmFFFFGgh.” My prodding finally is rewarded. He lifts his head a little, looks at me through half-closed eyes. “Mary. What’s--what’s wrong?”

“I really need to talk to you.”

“Did you have the Frankenstein dream again?”

I hit him on the shoulder and say defensively, “Not since I was ten, thank you very much.” I tug his arm. “Really, Frank.”

“Okay, I’m up. I promise. I’m up.” He lifts his head from where it was mashed into the pillow, rubbing his face with his hands. “I can’t wait to find out what is so imperative that it must be discussed at three-something in the morning--”

“Ms. Reilly suggested I talk more about Evelyn. Like, directly. And openly. And honestly, and all that crap. And she asked if I’d had any contact with her since the--well, I guess the day I left the foster house.”

In the half-light from the hallway, I see the sleep drain from his eyes. I sit on the edge of the bed as he props himself up on his elbows, fully alert. “She told you that?”

“Not in a bossy way or anything. She just recommended it to me.”

I hear crickets, distant but loud against the silence of our house.

“I’m not gonna tell you what to do, Mary.”

My jaw seizes up. Tears are on their way. “Can’t you?”

Frank sighs out of his nose with a quiet whistle as accompaniment. He flips himself over, sitting up normally now. “Not this time, bug.”

I close my eyes as if that will somehow imprison the tears and keep them from getting all over the place.

He touches my arm. “Mary, it’s okay. We don’t have to talk about this right now. Let’s get you back to sleep.”

“I didn’t fall asleep in the first place,” I say, my voice strangled. “I can’t. I have to decide what to do.”

“No, babe. That’s what sleeping is for. Literally. It’s science.” He’s throwing off the covers, getting up. I open my eyes to find his hand three inches from my face. “Come on.”

I blink up at him, resolving to never move. But then remember this one time when I was three--I don’t remember the original event exactly but Frank’s told the story so many times, it’s kind of melded into a memory for me--and he was trying to get me to come take a bath. He stood there and said he’d wait for me to be ready. And he did. We stared at each other for a good seventeen minutes before I got tired of him looming over my shoulder and gave in.

(If you ask Roberta, though, she says I was a little more resilient. After the seventeen minutes he had to pick me up and drop me in the tub. But I’ll let him believe he won that one.)

So this time, my resolve only lasts about ten seconds. Either I go willingly, or either A) he throws me over his shoulder, or B) we both stand here until the sun comes up.

I take his hand and lean against his side as we go back to my room.

“Frank?”

“Mhm.”

“I never really thought about talking to her again. It’s not like some secret desire I’ve been harboring for years.”

“I know, bug.”

“But I don’t know what to do.”

“How on earth could you know what to do? This’s been stirring around you all afternoon and all night and now it’s grown so huge it’s the only thing you can think about at this fine three-fifteen a.m. That’s not the ideal setup for actual decision-making.”

We go in my room and I throw myself dramatically on top of the mussed-up covers. He works around my prone, moaning body, fishing the blankets out and tucking them in all around the bed.

“There. Good as new.” He pushes my hair back so he can see some of my face--the part that’s not mashed into the pillow, at least--and says, “Mary, you gotta sleep, okay? I know right now it’s so loud in your brain, but… I promise it’ll feel different in the morning.”

I manage to yank my hand out and grab his arm before he can leave. My own arm feels weighty with exhaustion. “Frank.”

“Mm.”

“Can you sit? Like you did when I was little?”

I can’t really see what’s happening thanks to the sleep blearing my eyes and the hair in front of my face, but I hear some grunting and then the bed shifts. He’s leaned against it, and his voice is level with my head now. It’s really soft, but I hear him say, “You’re still little. To me, at least.”

\------

Frank’s right. Of course. In the morning, while things aren’t magically clear and the answer to my dilemma isn’t theatrically rising out of the ashes to present itself to me, my sense of urgency hasn’t quite woken up yet. I manage to finish my getting-ready routine and feed Mowgli before I’m halfway through my cereal and I suffer a slight twinge of desperation.

“Morning.” Frank’s hand grazes the top of my head as he passes the table, heading for the coffeepot.

“Mmff.”

A few minutes later, he sits down with his coffee and toast. Mowgli has joined us, sitting on the table and sniffing the handle of my spoon as I swirl it through the soggy leftovers of my Cheerios.

“Frank?”

“Mary?” he answers without looking up.

“I think I have to write to Evelyn.”

His cup freezes in midair and his eyes stare at me over the brim. “Have to, or want to?”

“Both. I’m not ready for it yet, probably. But later. Maybe,” I say, overflowing with pure confidence. “I guess I don’t have to decide for sure yet.” I watch Mowgli stretching for my spoon.

Frank shifts in his chair, actually drinking now and then setting down his cup. I feel a stiffness leaking out of the room that I hadn’t even realized was there. “I think that sounds good,” he says slowly. “No sense in worrying about it yet if you don’t need to.”

I nod. This would be a normal response, but it devolves into absurdity when I’m still nodding several seconds later. Frank looks at me, emphatically nodding at the leftover milk in my bowl.

“Mary?”

“Frank?”

“Look at me.”

My eyes flick up to meet his.

“One step at a time. What’s the first thing you want to do? Besides accost me in my place of work and pester Roberta in the kitchen.”

I think for a second, trying to picture the frantic scribbles and lists covering pages of my notebook. I’ve written down all my ideas and people I need to talk to and what I want to cover, but it’s kind of a mess. My path is sort of unclear.

“Maybe… I want to talk to Judge Nichols,” I say, looking at Mowgli. “I guess that’s kind of my first interview-ish thing I should do.”

“All right. That sounds perfect. You can email him. I’m not totally sure he’s still working, but if he isn’t, he won’t be tough to find.” Frank reaches over to squeeze my hand. “It’s a plan. Good?”

“Good,” I say instinctively, but then feel my heart thudding normally and my breathing slow just a bit. I realize it really is good. “Good,” I repeat, smiling this time.

“Okay.” Frank gets up and takes our dishes to the sink, swiping away my bowl just as Mowgli is about to stick his head in it. “Give me one minute, then we’ll head out. And can you put the cat on a different piece of furniture, please?”

I pick up Mowgli and take him to my bed, crouching in front of him with our faces so close that our noses nearly touch. “I’m going to figure out what happened,” I whisper. “We’re going to figure it out. Then it’ll be done and gone and we can all move on. Right?”

Mowgli blinks and licks my nose.

The sound of jingling keys fills the house. “Let’s go, bug!”


End file.
